Saturday, December 20, 2014

The stress of a Christmas Miracle

This week we had transfers. So it was the usual crazy schedule, getting up too early, going to bed too late. Loading and unloading suitcases a hundred times. During transfers there is a million things that go wrong and most of the time it seems that there isn't any solution. But in the end everything works out. Elder París left the office so now i´m the only one left from the original group. I'm staying one more transfer but after that I am going back as a normal missionary! As much as i´ve loved being in the office, I'm pretty excited to go back.

Wednesday was a day of life changes. In the morning we got up early to pick up the new missionaries from the hotel on the way there, the motorcyler in front of us was T boned by a small car running a red light. His body was thrown up in the air and my brain couldn´t process what I had just seen until it came crashing back down. We quickly stopped the car and ran to the man now laying still. Assessment: his arm was now a spagetti noodle, his face was severely cut from the glass, blood was coming out of his ears, and when asked what his name was, he could only groan loudly. I have always wanted to own a motorcycle but now i've decided against it. It's weird to think how this persons's plans and probably a large part of his life where changed in the matter of a few seconds.

To explain how the next life change happened I have to give a little back story. One day Elder Herron and I made some plans and found a little time to go to San Pedro to work. While I was turning lights off and getting my backpack I noticed a small paper on my desk with a name and an address so I stuffed it into my pocket. Later that day I remember I had the paper so I took it out and we realized we were on that same street. We looked for the address and when we gave up, we felt we needed to ask someone where it is. So we asked and a grumpy middle aged women directed us to some run down apartments. Run down is an understatement, I would also add "unsafe" and "sketchy." The door to get in the complex was locked so we went around the other side and the back door was open. After running into many spiderwebs we found the person, Vanessa. We taught her and she loved the message. Over time we taught her every once in a while and she was very smart but her family is all catholic and hated the mormons. When she told her parents that she was listening to us, they threatened to cut her off as their child. 

With time she became too busy to meet with us but every once in a while could go to church. She said that she would like to get baptised but if she did it, it would be in a long while and we coudln´t convince her otherwise. Well, that same wednesday of the accident we felt like we needed to call her so we did and she told us that she was going south for christmas on friday for a couple weeks but unwantingly allowed us to teach her later that day. We taught her something, I don´t remember what it was, the spirit was really strong and we challenged her to be baptised before she goes, in two days. She burst into tears and said yes. Later she told us that if she didn't do it now she wouldv'e just given up and followed what her family said, and not what God impressed her to do. On thursday she had her interview and on friday she got baptized. 

There was a ton of problems as usual, the font wasn't working and wouldn't fill up or drain, the person playing the piano couldn´t go, and we had to find buses for missionaries who just finished a conference. In the end, like usual, we got everything done. The opening song was "secreta oración" and the spirit was so strong. I couldn't help but think about how everything went perfectly, but how little we actually did. I look over at her and she was tearing up already. 

The best part about the baptismal service came afterwards when her cousin, who had been unsuccessfully trying to share the gospel with Vanessa for years, came up to us and told us about how hard she has worked to try help her cousin, how thankful she was for our help, and how happy she was to see Vanessa finally decide to do it.

It was a hard, exhausting week but watching Vanessa take this step was worth every second. 

On an interesting note, The two people that have been baptised in my time here are both named Vanessa and the people that baptised them are both named Daniel.

President has given us 45 minutes to do skype on Christmas so it will be a little complicated. 
Also, I got my package! It was awesome. Seriously, it had everything I wanted. Thanks to all those who chipped in.

I´ll see you all in a couple days! Inline image 1

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